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Custom Soil Resource Report <br />Vegetative Productivity <br />This folder contains a collection of tabular reports that present vegetative productivity <br />data. The reports (tables) include all selected map units and components for each <br />map unit. Vegetative productivity includes estimates of potential vegetative production <br />for a variety of land uses, including cropland, forestland, hayland, pastureland, <br />horticulture and rangeland. In the underlying database, some states maintain crop <br />yield data by individual map unit component. Other states maintain the data at the <br />map unit level. Attributes are included for both, although only one or the other is likely <br />to contain data for any given geographic area. For other land uses, productivity data <br />is shown only at the map unit component level. Examples include potential crop yields <br />under irrigated and nonirrigated conditions, forest productivity, forest site index, and <br />total rangeland production under of normal, favorable and unfavorable conditions. <br />Rangeland and Forest Vegetation Classification, <br />Productivity, and Plant Composition <br />In areas that have similar climate and topography, differences in the kind and amount <br />of rangeland or forest understory vegetation are closely related to the kind of soil. <br />Effective management is based on the relationship between the soils and vegetation <br />and water. <br />This table shows, for each soil that supports vegetation, the ecological site, plant <br />association, or habitat type; the total annual production of vegetation in favorable, <br />normal, and unfavorable years; the characteristic vegetation; and the average <br />percentage of each species. An explanation of the column headings in the table <br />follows. <br />An ecological site, plant association, or habitat type is the product of all the <br />environmental factors responsible for its development. It has characteristic soils that <br />have developed over time throughout the soil development process; a characteristic <br />hydrology, particularly infiltration and runoff that has developed overtime; and a <br />characteristic plant community (kind and amount of vegetation). The hydrology of the <br />site is influenced by development of the soil and plant community. The vegetation, <br />soils, and hydrology are all interrelated. Each is influenced by the others and <br />influences the development of the others. The plant community on an ecological site, <br />plant association, or habitat type is typified by an association of species that differs <br />from that of other ecological sites, plant associations, or habitat types in the kind and/ <br />or proportion of species or in total production. Descriptions of ecological sites are <br />provided in the Field Office Technical Guide, which is available in local offices of the <br />Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Descriptions of plant associations <br />or habitat types are available from local U.S. Forest Service offices. <br />Total dry- weight production is the amount of vegetation that can be expected to grow <br />annually in a well managed area that is supporting the potential natural plant <br />community. It includes all vegetation, whether or not it is palatable to grazing animals. <br />It includes the current year's growth of leaves, twigs, and fruits of woody plants. It does <br />not include the increase in stem diameter of trees and shrubs. It is expressed in pounds <br />per acre of air-dry vegetation for favorable, normal, and unfavorable years. In a <br />favorable year, the amount and distribution of precipitation and the temperatures make <br />growing conditions substantially better than average. In a normal year, growing <br />77 <br />